Prematurity

Promising research funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has found that the survival rate for babies born very prematurely is improving and among them, there has been a decline in neurological impairment. Researchers analyzed data from more than 4,000 infants born between 2000 and 2011 and saw a jump in survival rates from 30% to 36% during that time period. And the proportion of survivors born without neurological impairment grew from 16% to 20%. Contrary to what many experts believed in the past, increased survival rates for pre-term and extremely pre-term babies did not result in a higher proportion of disabilities among infants. “Every individual is different, and no single...